Landlords' bed bug secret creeps out

He has a dog. She has a gecko. They have a cat.

He is in financial services. She is a graphic artist. They are a young couple. They live in an apartment building near Yonge and York Mills. This is their first place together. They have bedbugs.

He said, "I guess it started in September of last year. I remember waking up one morning. I saw something crawl across me. I thought it was a tick. I thought it was from the dog. We lifted up the mattress ... I'd never seen anything like it; disgusting."

What did they do?

He said, "We wrapped the mattress in a tarp and taped it, sealed it." The landlord sprayed. The bugs came back.

We were chatting in their kitchen one night recently. She pulled a tray of cheese nibbles out of the oven and said, "I told some people at work back in December. It ended up being a scare. They told me if I didn't get out of my lease ..."

The implication?

They'd let her go if she brought the bugs to work. She said, "They gave me time off without pay to deal with it. I was working at home for a while, trying to fight management. We wanted out of the lease. We wanted our deposit back."

They can't afford to move. You know how it is when you're young and starting out and money's tight.

She said, "I found out that the lady who lived here before us had them. The super told us to keep it quiet. The lady below us, she was also told to keep things quiet. We should have been notified when we moved in."

He said, "We've been sprayed eight times over the last year. We started asking why they didn't spray the whole building."

She said, "I called Public Health. They told us it's not a health hazard, and we should just get sprayed and seal the floors and vacuum and vacuum."

You see how well that's been working.

They have moved from sleeping in one bedroom to the other bedroom and they have slept on the living room floor.

They keep the gecko on the balcony when the sprayers come and they take the dog and cat with them for the day.

They visited his folks on the east coast last year. He said, "I found one at my mother's." It came in his luggage.

She said, "I brought them to my parents in Belleville."

She has bought some 40 cans of insecticide. They are spending 50 bucks a week on laundry. She said, "The old lady downstairs is sleeping on a lawn chair. Her husband is sleeping on the floor."

You are not safe if you live in a building and just one of the apartments has bedbugs.

They keep four bags of clean sheets and blankets on the balcony. They have thrown out pieces of furniture. They have seen some 30 mattresses behind their building.

The same old story bears repeating: People who are poor will take those mattresses home with them. The problem is city-wide.

No, it is GTA-wide.

He said, "There ought to be a disclosure law, like if you're buying a house; when you move in, the landlord should have to inform you."

Tell it to your city councillor.

There oughta be a law.

She has knocked on doors and handed out a letter to other tenants. "I had people who were rude to me ... I was hoping to get a petition. We should be sprayed until they're all gone."

It can't go on.

It's going on.

Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca